ABSTRACT
The moral world of Jonathan Wild depends principally on a linguistic polarization of the terms 'good' and 'great', and of the derivatives, semantic and moral, which these two terms acquire in Henry Fielding's ironic scheme. The ironic use of 'greatness', the pointed contrast with 'goodness', the ultimate ideal of 'true greatness', were commonplace long before Fielding. Fielding's list of the truly great at the end of the poem 'Of True Greatness' consists exclusively of noblemen and other public leaders. In the case of Heartfree there is little humour, and therefore no safety-valve for certain primary elements of Fielding's temperament: a dislike of gravity, a scepticism of virtuous cant, and an authorial need to assert his emotional control of situations through rich feats of ironic modulation. Fielding insisted very hard that Heartfree was not to be despised for actual silliness or 'lowness' of character, and especially not for excessive gullibility.
